


Her Eyes

by Burgie



Category: Star Stable Online
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 01:40:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,889
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13400763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burgie/pseuds/Burgie
Summary: The story of how Rania lost her sight, but gained a kind but stubborn seeing-eye horse.





	Her Eyes

Rania swung her feet back and forth as she sat in the waiting room of the optometrist’s. She tipped her head back with a sigh, bored. She didn’t get why she had to keep coming here. Her mama said that this doctor would fix her eyes, but so far, the blurriness hadn’t gone away, not even with glasses. They just made things bigger, or they made her head hurt. The little pieces of glass, the contact lenses, only irritated her eyes. And after every appointment, the optometrist, a tall man with thin brown hair barely covering his scalp, ushered her mother into his office for quite some time. She’d been coming here since she was seven, when she’d first started struggling to read the words on signs, and she was ten now.

Rania sighed again as she closed her eyes, glad that at least the blissful darkness didn’t come with any headaches. She couldn’t even read any books or play with anything here, because it wasn’t like she could read the words very well. And the music coming from the speakers was too quiet for her to pick up on. Anyway, it was nothing compared to the beautiful birdsong that she could often hear back home in the woods of Mistfall. She smiled at the thought of it. Now, there was a nice sound.

The office door opened and closed, and Rania’s eyes snapped open, a smile still on her lips from the thought of the birds. But the smile froze on her face when she saw the distraught look on her mother’s face. As Sigry knelt down in front of her daughter, Rania could see that her eyes were puffy and bloodshot.

“Mama?” asked Rania, tilting her head to the side. “What’s wrong?” Sigry took a deep breath, and it distressed Rania greatly to see her usually-strong mother struggling to bring her emotions under control.

“Why don’t we go and see a movie, hey?” said Sigry, giving her daughter a weak smile. Rania would have jumped at the chance, but her mother was being suspicious. She narrowed her eyes at her mother.

“What’s wrong, mama?” asked Rania. Sigry sighed, closing her eyes and looking down, as though bracing herself for something. Now, Rania began to feel nervous, shifting uncomfortably on her hard plastic chair. Sigry looked up with a sniff.

“Your eyes… they aren’t going to get better, sweetie,” said Sigry, looking her daughter in the eyes. “The optometrist said that… that your eyes are only going to get worse, and that soon, you won’t be able to see at all.” She sobbed, wrapping her arms around her daughter, but Rania wasn’t sad yet. No, she was just angry.

“But can’t he do anything about it?” asked Rania, glaring around for the tall man. She finally found him, and fixed him with as much rage as a ten-year-old could muster. “You said he could fix my eyes!”

“I’m sorry, darling, but not everything can be fixed,” said the optometrist, his voice gentle, kind. Rania bristled, tears finally coming to her eyes.

“Then what was even the point of coming here?” Rania snapped, and she would have stood up if her mother hadn’t been gripping her so tightly. “You’re useless!” Turning, Rania buried her head in her mother’s shoulder and cried.

As soon as she got home, Rania grabbed her pony from the stables, a little red roan Jorvik Pony by the name of Cherrymist, and rode away on her into the woods. She took her camera out, aiming to take photos of the sights for the future. But then she remembered. There was no point in taking photos when she couldn’t see them in the future. Couldn’t see anything. Burying her head in her hands, Rania sobbed. It just wasn’t fair. Only old people were supposed to lose their sight, or people who were born blind or did bad things, but she’d never done anything wrong! Sure, she’d run away from home many times, and had gotten grounded for all manner of things, but surely that wasn’t serious enough to warrant blindness?

“Why, Aideen?” Rania screamed to the tree canopy above her, causing Cherrymist’s ears to pin back while birds exploded from the treetops and animals ran away from the noise. “What did I do to deserve this? I’m sorry for running off all the time, okay? Just please don’t take my sight away. Please, I’ll do anything! I’ll eat all my veggies, I’ll be nice to everyone, I’ll do all my chores and be in bed when mama tells me to go to bed, just please, please don’t take my eyes!”

Sigry found her crying daughter later that afternoon as the sun was beginning to set, sitting up on the Peregrine Trail Outlook. She’d never seen a child look so miserable while watching the sun set, setting the cliffs of South Hoof ablaze. Sigry sat down next to her daughter.

“It’s not your fault, you know,” said Sigry gently after a while of sitting in silence. “You’re not being punished for anything. Sometimes, these things just… happen.”

“How did you know?” asked Rania, her voice barely there. Sigry smiled gently.

“I think the whole town heard you screaming in the woods,” said Sigry. “I’m surprised Cherrymist didn’t run home in fright.” Rania didn’t smile, and Sigry looked down at her feet, lacing her fingers together between her knees. She sighed.

“It’s just not fair!” said Rania, tearing her eyes away from the cliffs now that the light had become more muted. “I love the forest, and now I’ll never see it again.”

“You’ll still have time,” said Sigry. “And I’ll tell you what, you can stay out in the forest as long as you want, you can even camp out here if you want. How does that sound?” She put a hand on her daughter’s knee, and finally, the light returned to Rania’s eyes.

“Do you really mean it?” asked Rania. Sigry nodded. “So I can camp out here every night, I can live out here like a squirrel?” Sigry nodded again, hesitantly, and Rania gave a squeal of excitement and hugged her mother. “Thank you, mama!”

Over the next few years, Rania’s eyesight worsened. Soon, she couldn’t see objects, only colours. And then, even the colours began to dim. She didn’t even look at the cane at first, the white stick promising a future that she wanted no part of. She barely slept at night, and tried to go as long as she could without blinking. Sigry often found her daughter passed out with her hand still touching the raised bumps of braille lettering sheets. She’d at least started to use those instead of throwing them across the room or tearing them into pieces.

There was a rockslide up at Hammer Peak. When Rania found out about it, it was the first time in a long time that she’d felt sorry for something that wasn’t herself. She cried, and spoke to the rangers and the druid Kora every day, asking about the welfare of the horses. And for a while, Sigry thought that her daughter’s spark was returning, that she was finally coming out of her own self-pity for long enough to think about other things, to worry about other things. Especially when she took a liking to Dellingr, the worst-injured horse. All four of his legs had been broken by the tumbling rocks, and Kora had stayed with the horse day and night to ensure that he could at least hobble back to her cottage. And there he’d stayed, and Rania had visited the recovering Haflinger, cooing over his gorgeous red coat and the mane and tail of purest, fluffiest white.

Rania didn’t leave her bed at all when her world finally turned permanently dark. Sigry sighed as she looked in at her miserable daughter, lying curled on her bed, her open eyes seeing nothing but darkness.

“I’m going out to see Kora,” said Sigry after knocking on the door so that Rania knew that she was there.

“Okay,” said Rania. That was all. No ‘tell Dellingr hi from me’, no ‘give Dellingr a pet from me’, nothing of the sort. Just that one word. But Sigry wasn’t going to be put off so easily.

Rania was at least sitting up by the time Sigry walked back into her bedroom. But then, perhaps her daughter was curious about why there was a horse sticking his head into her open bedroom window.

“Mama?” asked Rania, holding a hand up to the horse. He gently touched his nose to her open palm, and Rania trembled slightly.

“When I talked to Kora, she said that she needed someone who could exercise Dellingr,” said Sigry. “She already has a horse of her own, so she couldn’t exactly do it. A lot of people here already have horses of their own, too, so Kora unfortunately wasn’t getting too many volunteers.”

“That sucks,” said Rania, jerking away as Dellingr began to snuffle her hair. But she didn’t move away from the window, possibly because she was too worried about falling off the bed.

“But, luckily for Kora and Dellingr, I know just the spunky little girl who’s up to the task,” said Sigry. Rania snorted.

“Mama, you haven’t been a spunky little girl for at least a decade,” said Rania. Sigry smirked and prepared herself for Rania’s inevitable protests.

“I wasn’t talking about me,” said Sigry. “I was talking about Dellingr’s number-one supporter, the one who went out to visit him every day.” Rania frowned and shook her head.

“Mama, in case you forgot, I’m blind,” said Rania, tapping the skin beneath her eyes. “How am I supposed to train a horse when I can’t even see it?” In the window, Dellingr rolled his eyes.

“You may be blind, but Dellingr is not,” said Sigry. “Mounting and tacking up may be difficult at first, but Dellingr knows this area extremely well. And Kora did tell me that there’s something special about this horse.”

“Yeah, great, I’m gonna be the next Soul Rider,” said Rania with a scoff. 

“Just at least come outside and say hello to him,” said Sigry. “He’s missed you, you know.” Rania sighed but leaned forward, searching for the cane that she hadn’t ever used. Once she had it, she tapped it along the floor, sweeping it for any obstacles. She stood shakily on trembling legs, but at least she was up. In the window, Dellingr nickered encouragement.

Sigry helped Rania find her way out of the house and into the yard, where Dellingr waited patiently until Rania called him over. Only then did he trot over to the blind girl, stretching his neck down so that she could dig her fingers into his fluffy mane. To Sigry’s delight, Rania was smiling.

“Hey, boy,” said Rania, rubbing the horse’s neck. “I’ve missed you.” Sigry watched them, noting the careful way Dellingr moved with her daughter. It was almost as though he knew that she was blind. Sigry made a mental note to speak with Kora about this later. And to thank her.

“Do you want to go for a ride?” asked Sigry. “I can tack him up for you if you like.”

“No,” said Rania, shaking her head even as Dellingr snuffled in her hair, trying to make her laugh. He succeeded.

For the rest of the week, Sigry continued this routine. To her delight, by the third day, Rania was already outside with Dellingr, stroking his mane while he ate his breakfast, by the time she stepped outside. Sigry watched them with a smile. If nothing else, at least Dellingr was providing her daughter with some company.

On the seventh day of Dellingr living with them, a saddle pad was dropped in front of Rania, followed by a saddle, reins, and a helmet. Rania frowned as she touched the objects and discovered what they were.

“Mama, I’m not going to ride him,” said Rania. “I can’t even see, it’s stupid!”

“I didn’t put those in front of you,” said Sigry, smiling from the outdoor table where she sat with her mug of coffee. And it was true, she hadn’t put those things there- though she had brought them outside.

“What?” asked Rania. “Then who-?” Dellingr blew air in her face.

“Ew, banana breath,” said Rania, waving her hand in front of her nose. Dellingr counted once, his hoof thudding softly against the grass.

“What, did you bring them over, Dellingr?” asked Rania. The horse whinnied, and Sigry had to wonder just what, exactly, Kora had done to the horse. He’d probably start talking next, and, knowing the druids, Sigry wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Sigry wanted to say something, but she just sipped at her coffee and watched as her daughter scrunched up her face and carefully picked the saddle pad up.

“I don’t want to go riding,” said Rania. Dellingr tossed his head with another whinny. “No, it’s stupid, I can’t see so I’ll only fall off.” Dellingr shook his head, pawing at the ground. Then, because Rania couldn’t see the gestures, he nudged her gently, trying to hook his head under the saddle pad that she held in her hands. “Alright, alright, fine, but if I fall off, I’m blaming you.” Dellingr gave a proud-sounding whicker.

“That’s what the helmet is for,” said Sigry, standing from the table. She watched Rania put the tack on, only stepping in to straighten a few things up. Rania struggled with the reins and saddle, having to feel the lengths and tightness, but she did a pretty decent job.

“I don’t know if I can do this,” said Rania as she stood beside Dellingr, one hand on the saddle while the other gripped his bridle. She trembled as she clumsily hooked her foot into the stirrup.

“Yes you can,” said Sigry. “You’ve got him all dressed up, it would be rude not to take him anywhere. Besides, he’s been a little cooped up lately.” Dellingr snorted as if in agreement. Rania took a deep, shaky breath, then let it out.

“Okay,” said Rania. “Okay, you’re right, I can do this. If Dellingr can come back from a rockslide and still be this friendly, I can get on a horse without any vision.” She closed her eyes, as though that would help, and gripped the saddle and bridle tightly as she swung herself up. She leaned a little too far to one side, though, and toppled off before Sigry could catch her. Angry, Rania got up, growling, and began stomping away. But Dellingr darted in front of her and whinnied in her face, taking a few steps backwards so that she wouldn’t collide with him.

“Huh, looks like I’m not your only cheer squad,” said Sigry, grinning. “I think he wants you to ride him.”

“Well, too bad, because I can’t see!” said Rania. “I’ll just fall off again like an idiot, or I’ll fall off out in the woods somewhere, and no one will know because he’ll just run away and leave me there!”

“No, he won’t,” said Sigry. “If the two of you do become somehow separated, just whistle and he’ll come running. And, should something happen to you, just tell him to come find me and he will.” Rania huffed but, finding her way back to the house blocked by a horse, she walked around to Dellingr’s side and put her foot in the stirrup again. This time when she swung up, she tried to remember her balance lessons from when she’d first started riding. Just imagine a line running down your body, and…

To her surprise and delight, Rania didn’t fall off. She grinned.

“Look, mama, I did it!” said Rania. “I’m on him without falling off!”

“Good job,” said Sigry, grinning and applauding, joy for her daughter rushing through her.

On the first ride, Dellingr only stayed in town, which was possibly more dangerous with the cobblestones to fall on, but Rania already felt more free, grinning in pure happiness. Somehow, she knew that Dellingr would keep her safe from harm. After all, there were plenty of fences, cars, people, and buildings to crash into in town, but he didn’t hit a single one. He only walked at first, too, not even picking up speed when Rania dug her heels into his sides.

“Why can’t we go faster, Dellingr?” Rania complained after a week of this. Dellingr gave a roll of his eyes and obeyed his rider’s instruction to go up to a trot. Immediately, Rania cried out in fear and pulled up hard on the reins. “Slow down, slow down!” Dellingr nickered, which Rania frowned at while she tried to get her heart to beat normally once more.

“Did you have a nice ride?” asked Sigry when they got back, as she always did.

“Is he only going at a walk because he knows I need to get used to riding without my eyes?” asked Rania. Sigry smiled.

“You’ll have to ask Kora, but I don’t think she’ll answer you,” said Sigry. “Those druids sure do like to be mysterious.”

“Well, whatever it is, I’m glad,” said Rania. “Now I have something to work towards.” At her grin, Sigry’s heart soared. Finally, her daughter was moving out of the darkness and into the light.


End file.
